Empathetic Epiphany
by forensicsfan
Summary: NS friendship. A bit of a disagreement about working the evidence on the case leads to a realization for one CSI. One shot. Contains spoilers for Gum Drops.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own them, I didn't' create them, and I don't profit from them. However, as always, I would love to buy George and Jorja coffee so I'd have an excuse to visit the set during filming.

**Author's Note:** Based on spoiler information on spoilers, it appears that much of Grissom's role in "Gum Drops" was given to Nick (due to a death in William Peterson's family). Now, given that we don't know how much if any of Grissom we'll see in that episode...the whole "Sleeping With Sara" scene might be on the cutting room floor, or might not have been filmed at all (at least I can hope). We'll have to wait until the episode actually airs to know for sure. But in the meantime, this idea came to me (thanks to a comment from Laura on the Georges Eads Yahoo group) and I thought I'd run with it. And before you ask, I'm not really into writing sequels, so what happens after the end of this is up to your imagination.

* * *

"Nick, what has gotten into you?" Sara looked at him with an expression of complete exasperation on her face. 

Nick's jaw was set. "I'm working the case." He was immediately defensive. They along with Greg and Warrick had been called out to a remote town outside of Vegas called Pioche to investigate the apparent murder of the McDermott family. So far, though, all they had was enough blood to assume that all four of the McDermott's had been killed; no bodies had yet been recovered and it was that bit of information that gave Nick hope that finding two different wads of gum pressed onto the railing of the dock outside their house with Cassie McDermott's DNA on them was enough evidence that perhaps the ten-year old competitive swimmer had escaped the carnage and was still alive.

"You don't know that she's alive." Sara was concerned. She knew that he sometimes let himself get too involved emotionally in a case, and she thought that it clouded his objectivity to what the evidence was telling them.

"You don't know that she _isn't_" Nick's jaw twitched. "We owe it to her...to all of them to chase down every lead, Sara. I think the evidence suggests that she could be alive; we should assume that she is until we find evidence to the contrary." His voice was abrupt and his tone sharp.

"Nick." Sara's brow furrowed. Something told her that maybe Nick's ordeal of being buried alive had affected his ability to do his job objectively. "Be careful."

Nick bristled at the underlying accusation that her tone conveyed. "I'm fine, Sara." He turned and walked off, needing a little time to himself, and a moment to call the lab to see if the DNA lab could confirm his suspicions about how long the gum had been pressed into the railing; he knew it couldn't have been too long, it had still be rather pliable when he'd found it.

Sara watched him go and she let out a sigh of frustration. Nick was a good friend and she cared about him probably more than she'd ever admit. When he'd been buried alive, she hadn't wanted to give up even though statistically things hadn't looked good for him from the get go. For the first time, she realized that what she felt when Nick was missing was probably a bit of what he felt every time he worked a case and she suddenly felt an overwhelming sense that she needed to talk to him; but given his current state of mind, she reasoned that she would do it later, after he'd had time to cool down a little bit.

It wasn't until hours later when Nick's eyes were having difficulty focusing that he realized that they'd all been working far too long on the case, and as the lead, he needed to make the call that they all get some sleep. After an argument with Grissom over the phone about their inability to function on less than six hours of sleep when he'd suggested they could only have four and the fact that Ecklie had made it clear he wasn't going to be paying any overtime on this case, he'd finally tumbled into bed trying to block out Warrick whispering sweet nothings to his wife Tina on the phone.

Nick was just on the verge of sleep when he heard Warrick say a few things he just did not want to be in the room for. He grunted in frustration and sat up in bed, giving Warrick a pointed glance. "I'll let you and Tina be alone...I'm going for a walk until you're...done."

Warrick looked guilty as hell with the phone cradled against his shoulder. "I thought you were asleep."

"Apparently." He smirked at Warrick and let out a yawn and slipped his shoes on before grabbing his jacket and heading out of the motel room. The thought occurred to him that he could crash in Greg's room, but as he approached the door, he could hear snoring through the door and thought better of it. That's when he noticed that the light in Sara's room was still on. His thoughts drifted back to their little confrontation over Cassie McDermott earlier that day and he felt badly that he'd snapped at her.

He knocked softly on the door in case she actually was asleep but was pleasantly surprised that the door opened so quickly.

Sara had a quizzical expression on her face and she opened the door wider to let him in. "Nick, why are you still up?" She knew that he was tired; hell they were all tired. The case had gotten so crazy that she hadn't had the opportunity to talk to Nick since her mini epiphany

He smirked impishly as Sara closed the door. "Uh, Warrick's on the phone with Tina and it was getting a little too personal."

Sara chuckled softly, she could only imagine just how personal something would have to be for Nick to feel uncomfortable enough to leave the room. She looked intently at Nick for a moment. "Hey, I wanted to talk to you about earlier."

"About that...I wanted to apologize for snapping at you." Nick let out a sigh; he knew that Sara would probably give him another earful of just why he was too emotionally involved in the case. She was entitled to her opinion; it didn't mean that he had to share it.

The words out of Sara's mouth were not the ones he was expecting however. "No, I'm sorry...I just assumed that my perspective was the only perspective." Her expression was soft and it surprised Nick.

Nick regarded her cautiously for a moment before nodding in understanding. "I think that sometimes we all get a little tunnel vision on these things. I should have heard you out."

"But you're right, we haven't found her or the rest of the family for that matter, sure there was a lot of blood, but there is no evidence to confirm that Cassie isn't alive, but that still doesn't tell us where she is." Sara was rooting for Nick to be right; for something good to come out of this horrible crime; although if Cassie McDermott was still alive, Sara didn't envy the emotional scars she'd carry around the rest of her life.

Nick was skeptical. "Why the change of mind, Sar?" His tone wasn't malicious, just curious.

Sara's smile was tentative as she regarded him for a minute and then she reasoned that no one else had crossed that unspoken line of talking to Nick about his ordeal and she needed him to know that she hadn't given up on him; that none of them had even wavered in their search for him despite several dead ends in the process. "I was thinking about how I felt when you were missing."

Nick felt a sudden wave of emotion; outside of the guys from PD giving him hell about it every time they saw him, none of the CSIs had acted like they wanted to talk about it other than to ask him if he was ok; something that had gotten really old really fast. None of them had told them about their own reactions to his abduction.

Sara watched his expression carefully as she continued. "I was scared, Nick. When we found out what had happened to you, I felt like I'd lost my best friend and I didn't know how to get him back."

Despite his best efforts, Nick felt his chin quiver and he sank down onto one of the beds in the room.

Sara sat down next to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. "We didn't give up, we couldn't give up...we couldn't lose you."

A tear slipped down Nick's cheek and he quickly brushed it away. He was feeling a little awkward sitting there next to Sara listening to how she had felt while he'd been buried alive. "I'm glad you didn't give up." Sometimes it wasn't just enough to know people cared; you wanted to hear them say it.

"We all felt so helpless...we didn't want you to give up before we found you." She began to softly rub his back in a comforting gesture.

"I knew you guys would do your best to find me..." He didn't tell her that he'd thought at one point that they had, only to find that the Plexiglas of the coffin was cracking. His hope had taken a serious blow at that point.

"I would have done anything to find you, Nick...we all would have." Her voice was soft. "Is that how you feel about finding Cassie McDermott?" Sara felt vulnerable even asking him that question.

Nick just nodded, a bit dumbfounded that Sara seemed to understand his empathy for victims for the first time since he'd known her. "Yeah, something like that...She's probably scared, Sara...if she's still alive." He let out a tired sigh.

"If she's still alive, then we owe it to her to get some rest so we can do our best to find her and find out who killed her family." Sara rested her head against his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him and gave him a hug, smiling as she felt Nick's arms wrap around her and hug her back.

_**The End.**_


End file.
